Basics

1- It may sound corny but you have to have a lot of determination. Too many sites are a spur of the minute thing where somebody has made them, worked on them for a couple of days and then moved on to something else. You need to put in a lot of effort to get a good layout and a good amount of hits.

2- It helps to plan your site on paper first, this may sound kinda a waste of time or something - but trust me the result can be a lot better.

3- You should also decide on your content so you don't get lose site of what you are doing. You should also try and get some stuff that you can't get on other sites

4-  Tables are a very useful part of a great layout, they can stop your layout being too cluttered and also make the site a lot easier to navigate.

7- DO NOT rip content or layouts from other peoples sites.

6- Now you should be ready to upload, two trustworthy servers are Angelfire where you start off with 5-meg and can get up to 30-meg if you apply for extra space (This site is on angelfire). Angelfire can also run scripts like SSI (How I get my tables on every page but only have to modify them on one to change them everywhere). To sign up click here. Another option is Geocities, where you start with 15-meg. It is a bit simpler to use but cannot run scripts such as SSI. To sign up click here.